Decode Your Cravings Assessment BioPsychoSocial Manipulators

Transcription

1 Assessment BioPsychoSocial Manipulators

2 Manipulators Overview The reason you struggle to align your behavior with your good intentions is because your behavior is being manipulated. BioPsychoSocial Manipulators are biological, psychological, and social factors that manipulate the decisions you make or block your ability to make decisions that align with your goals. Every person is affected by a different combination of manipulators. And each person will be affected by different manipulators at different times in their life. Being successful with consistent habits that promote health and happiness requires awareness of the concept of manipulators, understanding them, identifying them, and working to overcome them. The goal is not to be free of manipulators, because that likely isn t possible. The goal is to manage your manipulators to keep the stress they produce under your specific Stress Tolerance Threshold the point at which stressors become too significant and cause your behavior to be manipulated in a significant way. No single manipulator is usually responsible for breaching this threshold. Instead, it s most often a combination of manipulators. This workbook, in tandem with our online manipulator assessment, will help you identify and understand your manipulators.

3 Manipulators Master List Perfectionism Shame Guilt Anxiety Grief Negative Self-Talk Toxic Beliefs Financial Stress Career Unfulfillment Career Stress Poor Gut Health Toxic Relationships Hormone Imbalances Time People Pleasing Low Self-Esteem Oppression Clutter Pattern Paralysis Nutritional Poverty Sugar Dependency Mindlessness Poor Sleep Peer Pressure Disordered Body Image Eating Disorder Lack of Support Chronic Illness Excessive Exercise Nihilism Isolation From Nature Drugs & Medication Your Comfort Zone Core Cravings Safety Mobility Movement Love & Relationships Social Acceptance Purpose Health & Vitality Self-Actualization Autonomy Other Addiction Adverse Childhood Experiences Optimal Foraging Programming

4 Perfectionism A personality trait characterized by a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical selfevaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. Perfectionism manipulates people into making choices that non-perfectionists likely wouldn t make, often leading to destructive consequences. Shame The feeling and thoughts that we are somehow wrong, defective, inadequate, not good enough, or not strong enough, regardless of our actions. Shame manipulates behavior through self-sabotage or an avoidance of self-care. It is a tool of The Critic sub-personality. Guilt A cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes accurately or not that he or she has compromised his or her own standards of conduct or has violated a moral standard and bears significant responsibility for that violation. People who feel guilt make decisions that people who don t feel guilt would never make. Anxiety An emotion characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination. Both acute anxiety and chronic anxiety disorders are manipulators as they suppress the logic part of the brain and lead people to make choices they would not make in a more reasoned mindset. Grief A multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions. Negative Self-Talk A psychological term for all the negative things that a person tells themselves about themselves or their behavior in their own head. These messages manipulate the person s behavior the same way their behavior may be manipulated if a real person was standing there talking to them the same way. Toxic Beliefs A psychological term for all the negative things that a person believes about themselves. Toxic beliefs and negative self-talk are often confused with one another the same way shame and guilt are confused. Self-talk is often driven by toxic beliefs but they are not the same. Financial Stress Being consistent with healthy habits requires mental, emotional, and physical resources. One of those physical resources is money. Being tight on money can prevent you from participating in certain physical activities or from buying certain foods. Stress about finances can lead to anxiety and play on shame and toxic beliefs regarding worthiness. These are just a few examples of how financial stress can manipulate behavior. Career Unfulfillment When you are unfulfilled in your career it can trigger Core Cravings manipulators: autonomy, purpose, and self-actualization. Because work is often such a big part of our life, Career Unfulfillment is a huge source of behavior manipulation by triggering other manipulators and draining mental and emotional resources.

5 Career Stress Even if you feel fulfilled in your career, there s a good chance that you experience chronic work stress. Deadlines, expectations, bosses, and problematic co-workers are a common source of this stress. Even rush hour traffic that s required to get to your job contributes. These stressors drain mental and emotional resources, leaving you less equipped to follow through with healthy choices. Poor Gut Health The gut is our second brain and is connected to our brain via the Vagus Nerve. When the gut is in a state of dysbiosis, our entire physical body is affected as well as our mental health. Gut problems are also the source of most autoimmune disorders and many nagging physical ailments that trigger other manipulators. Toxic Relationships A relationship characterized by behaviors on the part of the toxic partner that are emotionally and, not infrequently, physically damaging to their partner. Aside from not fulfilling your core craving for intimacy and connection, toxic relationships serve as an added manipulator because they create stress in your life and trigger other manipulators. Hormone Imbalances Hormones play a significant role in your body s functions. Because they re so important, any imbalance can lead to a chain of problems, manipulating your behavior and adding layers of stress. These imbalances can take significant amounts of time and money to correct, which has the potential to impact other manipulators. Sticking to healthy habits requires having enough mental and emotional resources to be able to follow through consistently. Being over-scheduled or over-committed reduces precious margin and can quickly drive your stress above your tolerance threshold. People Pleasing/Perfectionism/Performing A person who suppresses their own needs in order to satisfy the needs of others, especially from fear of damaging the relationship by expressing their own needs or saying no. People pleasing is a sub-genre of co-dependence and represents behavior being taken over by a People Pleaser sub-personality. People Pleasing is a state of inauthenticity and constant inner-manipulation. Low Self-Esteem Self-esteem is your overall opinion of yourself how you feel about your abilities and limitations. When you have healthy self-esteem, you feel good about yourself and see yourself as deserving the respect of others. When you have low selfesteem, you put little value on your opinions and ideas. Low self-esteem goes hand in hand with negative self-talk, toxic beliefs, and shame and is a master manipulator. Oppression An abstract manipulator that represents all the ways in which your authentic behavior is being suppressed, either by rules, laws, social patterns, culture, physical/emotional/psychological control, etc. This manipulator requires a deep level of introspection to identify dozens of potential oppressors (submanipulators). All instances of oppression have the ability to trigger your Inner- Rebel. Lack of Time Time is a finite resource that you can never get back. Your subconscious understands this even though your conscious mind can be quick to give your time away to others or to simply waste it.

6 Cluttered Environment When you live surrounded by clutter, it is impossible to have clarity about what you are doing in your life. This is another manipulator that drains physical, mental, and emotional resources. To add another layer, you should consider mental and emotional clutter you may be burdened with. Pattern Paralysis A state of being controlled and manipulated by a programmed pattern of behavior. For example, wanting dessert after every meal because you ate dessert after every meal growing up. Pattern Paralysis can also be linked to cultural norms, holidays, and traditions. It s a powerful manipulator because it s driven by feelings of comfort and nostalgia that parts of you may not want to separate from. Nutritional Poverty A state of being deficient in key micro or macro nutrients, or calories in general. Nutritional Poverty is common with people who eat a nutrient-poor Standard American Diet or who follow restrictive dieting protocols such as being low-fat, low-carb, Vegan, or simply low-calorie. This state of health manipulates foodseeking behavior, causes insatiable hunger, and triggers the Inner-Rebel. Sugar Dependency A state of chemical dependence on sugar that results in withdrawal symptoms when sugar is mostly removed from the diet. This is not the same as sugar addiction. Sugar dependency manipulates food-seeking behavior, causes hormone imbalances, elevates stress levels, and can trigger negative self-talk, shame, guilt, and your Inner-Rebel. Not only does poor sleep drain mental and emotional resources, it triggers a stress response which promotes fat storage and manipulates food-seeking behavior. Poor sleep has a direct impact on hormones, increasing Ghrelin (hunger hormone) production by up to 30% and suppressing Leptin (satiety hormone) production by up to 20%. Poor sleep makes you seek sugar and carbohydrates for rapid energy but makes you physiologically less able to handle those foods by fueling insulin resistance. It s a nasty manipulator. Peer Pressure Influence that encourages others to change their attitudes, values, or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. Pressured behavior is inauthentic, which is manipulated behavior by definition. Adults tend to see peer pressure only has something that happens to kids, but it affects adults all the time. Trouble staying consistent in social settings is a key symptom of being affected by peer-pressure, which can also be linked to low self-esteem and people pleasing. Disordered Body Image Body image is how you see yourself when you look in the mirror or when you picture yourself in your mind. It encompasses what you see, feel, and sense about your body. If this image is disordered, you have a distorted perception of your shape--you perceive parts of your body unlike they really are. You are convinced that only other people are attractive and that your body size or shape is a sign of personal failure. You feel ashamed, self-conscious, and anxious about your body. And you feel uncomfortable and awkward in your body. Disordered body image manipulates your relationship with food, body, and Self. Poor Sleep Getting less than 7-8 hours of sleep per night or getting low-quality sleep is a master manipulator.

7 Eating Disorder Any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits (such as anorexia nervosa). If you have any indication at all that you may have an eating disorder it s important to seek professional help immediately or call the NEDA hotline: Lack of Support When you aren t close to anyone who shares your goals and outlook on the world and who can help hold you accountable, it triggers feelings of loneliness, disconnect and lack of acceptance from the tribe. This in part can trigger fear and anxiety and other manipulators. Chronic Illness Any chronic physical or mental illness drains resources and has the ability to trigger many other manipulators. It s very difficult to keep stress under your tolerance threshold when you have a chronic illness unless you have done significant work to master your mindset. Chronic illness is highly correlated with Adverse Childhood Experiences and chronic stress. Excessive Exercise Exercise is a major stress on the body. In appropriate quantities, it s both necessary and beneficial. When taken to more extreme levels, it quickly becomes destructive. It increases stress markers, suppresses the immune system, increases the need for sleep, manipulates food-seeking behavior, disorders hormones, and drains resources. While certain career/hobby choices can demand it, it s often driven by a sub-personality for the purposes of coping or symbolic substitution. Isolation from Nature Human beings have a biological need to experience nature. Being in nature has a direct impact on hormones and psychology. It changes the brain. It s restorative. In one study, participants who spent 3 days in nature scored 50% higher on a creativity assessment. Being separated from nature chronically can elevate anxiety and trigger other manipulators. Drugs and Medication All drugs and medications are not manipulators, but some are. Some drugs and medications affect hormones, mood, physical and emotional resources, gut health (NSAIDs for example), and can trigger other manipulators as well as blocking you from fulfilling core cravings. This is true even for the most socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine. Your Comfort Zone Your comfort zone is a psychological boundary that enables you to live in fear and mediocrity while furthering the fairy tale that you re avoiding pain. Subpersonalities are often easily trapped inside of your comfort zone, which is a driver of negative self-talk and toxic beliefs. This artificial psychological boundary which is usually drawn based on specific adverse experiences is a powerful, master manipulator. Nihilism The rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. Nihilism is antithetical to biological survival programming, thus is considered inauthentic behavior that leads to inauthentic choices.

8 Core Cravings When any of your core cravings go unfulfilled it triggers stress, drains resources, and can trigger other manipulators. If core cravings can t be met, your mind will try to find Symbolic Substitutes to help fulfill the need. Even though these substitutes can mitigate pain and stress, they can often lead to destructive consequences. Addiction Compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences. I ve listed addiction in the other category because addictive behavior is usually an addict s response to manipulators and experiences that are overwhelming. The addictive behavior of choice is not the problem, rather it s the addict s solution to the problem medication for their wounds. Next Steps In Part 3 of, we will help you develop a game plan for overcoming or mitigating the manipulators that are affecting you. It s possible that you might not be in complete agreement with some of the manipulators you ve checked off. Sometimes we have blind spots. Sometimes we have defense mechanisms that want to deny reality. And sometimes it s true that we ve selected something that doesn t correctly identify us. Adverse Childhood Experiences Adverse experiences in childhood shape our matrix of sub-personalities and contribute to the formation of many manipulators that affect us later in life. They are highly correlated to chronic illness, disordered eating, addiction, drug use, toxic relationships, shame, toxic beliefs, and destructive behaviors. Optimal Foraging Programming A survival mechanism burned into our genetic code that drives us to consume the most amount of calories and expend the least amount of effort on a day to day basis. While it served us well in times of famine and pre-agriculture, it acts as a manipulator in our modern world. It s better to keep things you re uncertain about checked for the moment. It s not harmful to continue considering them as possibilities. As you do more work and gain more self-awareness through this process it will bring more clarity to what s actually affecting you. Let the process happen organically. Don t try to force anything. Just breathe and keep moving.

9 Well Done.